not harder so i put it on. [ cheers and applause ] >> president george w. bush 18 years ago during the world series a month and a half after 9/11 threw a dart down the middle. i'm willie geist, president trump as you heard attending the world series on sunday, if there is a game five, the nationals could end is before then. with us this morning, we have "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner, the author of the book a world in disarray richard haass, republican strategist and msnbcal list sus

msnbc analyst susan delaware percio. reverend al sharpton, and an msnbc contributor karine jean tee, a. and political contributor rick tyler. joe and mika are off today as they attend the funeral of congressman elijah cummings later this morning in baltimore. rev, i wanted to start with you because you were at that beautiful memorial for elijah cummings where you have saw mitch mcconnell, nancy pelosi, both sides of the aisle paying tribute to a great man. >> elijah cummings was the first african american to lead the state. and to see schumer and pelosi and everyone sitting there together, mika and joe and i sat with the family. you know congressman cummings

officiated their wedding. this is a man who never gave up his principles but learned how to relate to others. it was a testimony a day after we saw 130 republicans storm the house, that we can be civil and debate in spite of fighting. it was great to see and we were there to mourn his passing. >> his funeral will be later down in baltimore. we'll go live there a little bit later in the show. at the want to begin with nbc news confirming that an investigation into the origins of the russia probe closely overseen by attorney general william barr has changed from an

administrative review to a criminal investigation. it was first reported "the new york times." it's being conducted by u.s. attorney john durham. this move gives durham the power to subpoena witness testimony and documents to convene a grand jury and to file criminal charges. as the times notes, it's likely to raise alarms that president trump again is using the justice department to go after his perceived enemies. at this point it's not clear what potential crime he's investigating and a doj spokesperson declined to comment. federal investigators need only a reasonable indication that a crime has been committed to open an investigation, a mush lowch standard than that required for a search warrant. but there must be a factual basis, a mere hunch is insufficient. that's according to doj guidelines. the administrative review of the russia probe began in may after attorney general barr said he had conversations that led him

to believe that the fbi had acted improperly. it's not clear when the change to a criminal investigation took place. house intel committee chair adam schiff and house judiciary chair jerry nadler summoned wirespondg saying if true, the department of justice under attorney william barr has lost its independence and has become a vehicle for president trump's political revenge. so, julia, explain, if you can, what exactly john durham has seen from the time he initiated or since the time the justice department initiated this administrative review in may to make it change into a criminal investigation which has, of course, wide-ranging implications for who he can talk to, what he can gather, the evidence he can seek. >> well, willie, there's been some low-level names of people

who have not risen to the top of this investigation. possibly because it was a criminal investigation and now we're finding out. but what pushed it from being an administrative review to a criminal investigation, we're not cleerpar. what's ironic about this entire thing is that the same questions we're asking about this investigation are the very questions that the durham investigation set out to answer about what became the mueller investigation. we're talking about political bias. is this being used as a tool from this administration to go after people who the president believes are against him, who are part of the deep state? we're also talking about a predicate. john durham went out to see if the fbi had enough information, if the justice department had enough information to seek fisa warrants on people like carter page and now we're asking those same questions. is there enough information for this to go to a criminal investigation? so, again, we're back in the same spot of having to ask a lot

of questions about our justice department and investigators and whether or not they are free from bias. i will say john durham is someone with a stellar resume here. he investigated cia torture, he's done investigation has no mafia rings. but there are a lot of questions. people i've spoken to within the fbi say there can be a chilling effect and they're worried that the next time they're asked to investigate any kind of campaign, especially someone who may go on to hold federal office, that there will be a reluctance to be involved in those investigations because it that person wins, you could be called before a grand jury. and on the grand jury piece, on the idea that you can now subpoena, i asked a doj official about that who said that john durham really always had the power to compel testimony simply because he's u.s. attorney, but it doesn't seem that he has up until to point, it was more voluntary. but because it's a criminal investigation, they can now subpoena testimony, subpoena witnesses, and impanel that grand jury which will put this into a completely different

category and allow them to compel more information, dig deeper than they could, say, when you just put this in the camp the inspector general at the justice department who is also doing a review into the same questions. >> it's extraordinary that the justice department has moved this as a top priority now. of course attorney general barr himself, not just john durham, has been traveling the world looking into this, places like the uk, australia, and notably italy because they think there's some link there between a extra with the italian government and someone on the trump campaign who was tricked into giving information. you had the prime minister coming out on wednesday to publicly declare that was not the case, that the italian government had no role in this. but, again, extraordinary that the attorney general of the united states of america is flying to italy to look into this question. >> it's true, it shows the priority that the justice department is putting on this investigation. rather than handing all of this off to john durham, it's clear that the attorney general sees this as a top priority and not

only have they been cleared by people by the italian prime minister saying there was really nothing here to see, we saw the white house last week in that rather remarkable press conference mick mulvaney use the justice department investigation, use what john durham is doing as some kind of justification for the president's phone call in ukraine, that this was all to get to the bottom of what launched the investigation, get to the bottom of the 2016 election, and because of that, that somehow justified the president getting involved and having that conversation with the president of ukraine that ultimately led to him asking to dig up dirt on his political opponent joe biden. so this investigation cannot be seen in a vacuum. it is something that this administration is using to justify all sorts of priorities and then, of course, what is at the heart of now an impeachment inquiry. >> rick tyler, this is another case where the justice department in this case but also the republicans in the house and

the senate this week have answered president trump's call to go chase down theories that he has. remember he said that the fbi agents who opened this investigation into the 2016 campaign interference were, quote, treasonous, he said that earlier this year. william barr is working here on behalf of president trump, there's no other way to put it. >> so, willie, there's only one reason attorney general barr who's supposed to be managing the justice department, which is a fairly large job and one with great responsibility, where he is traveling around the world, as you point out, to personally investigate a case tells you that the priority -- it doesn't seem to be william barr's priority, although it may be, this is the president's priority. he is obsessed with the 2016 election results for whatever reason because it speaks to his legitimacy, and he wants to just blow up all the facts that we

know that happened in the 2016 election results, which was there was russian interference, not ukrainian interference, although that is also a russian story. it was russian interference in the campaign, it was systematic, the trump campaign unwittingly coordinated with the russians. you have paul manafort who was a campaign chairman who is now in jail for his connections with pro russian/ukrainian politicians. it goes on and on. there's no reason bill barr would ever be involved in any particular case unless it was the president's obsession. that's what's going on here. remember, bill barr was the one who came out after the mueller investigation to systematically undermine it. he went out in advance of the mueller investigation to put justice department or his -- and i would say the president's particular spin on an investigation, he gave it to the white house before anybody else had a chance to look at it and it sat there for days of

spinning by the white house and justice department to put a particular framing of what the mueller report was. and so that is now happening again. >> so, julia, let me just clarify one thing. this was an investigation into the origins of the investigation, is that right? because i don't see a lot of disputing of the outcomes and the findings of the investigation. you had the intelligence agency, of course, you had robert mueller the white house has dispute the parts of that, obviously. but is the justice department saying that what this investigation revealed is, in fact, false or just that it was not well predicated? >> it's exactly the former, willie. they haven't disputed the findings at all. in fact, especially because the ultimate finding was that the president and his campaign did not collude or have a conspiracy with the russians. they're not disputing that at all. what they're going to as a republican talking point that we've heard over the past two years that was laid out in the

nunez memo, this is the idea that people within the fbi used that steele dossier as a reason to get fisa warrants. that would be a surveillance warrant on carter page, that then went and opened this investigation. there are also conspiracy theories that have been largely disproven but george papadopoulos and whether or not when he met with a professor, whether or not that was orchestrated by the cia as george papadopoulos has claimed. but this isn't the only investigation they've had into these questions. house republicans have looked into this as well as the inspector general who has been looking into this for over a year. we're still waiting on those results. and then you add on top of this now a criminal investigation into these very same questions. but during this entire course, there has been no evidence that these warrants were in any way fabricated. in fact, i should just point out in order to get a warrant you

have to have a judge sign off. and we've been able to see from those fisa warrants before this ever became the mueller probe, in these early days there were many people who came through the justice department who signed their names to this. it's not like this was all in the hands of one person or one political affiliation. it even continued during the trump justice department. >> all right. julia ainslie explaining a compensated story very well. thanks so much. meanwhile, president trump has spent the week urging republicans to, quote, get tough and fight for him. yesterday, he took to twitter to praise house republicans for being, quote, tough, smart have and understanding after a group of republican congressman stormed the secure room at the capitol where an impeachment inquiry deposition was taking place. and hours after that tweet from the president, senator lindsey graham produced a resolution slamming house democrats impeachment inquiry, five-page measure cosponsored by majority leader mitch mcconnell accuses democrats of violating due process for interviewing key

witnesses behind closed doors. according to a summary released by graham's office, the resolution calls on the house to hold a floor vote that would formally initiate the impeachment inquiry as well as provide president trump with, oquote, due process to include the ability to confront his accusers, call witnesses on his behalf and have a basic understanding of the accusations against him. it also requests that republicans be able to, quote, participate fully in all proceedings and have equal authority to issue subpoenas. here's what senator graham had to say about the new measure yesterday. >> give president trump these rights that every other president, nixon, clinton have had, and take a vote to allow the house to be on record authorizing this. this is a rogue action by a single committee of the house that has never done impeachment inquiries before and i think it's dangerous to the presidency. >> if they tried to interfere with the house impeachment process back in the '90s,

president clinton, how would you have reacted. >> i think if we wore doing this ubd beating the [ bleep ] out of us. >> it is backed by 46 republican senators, seven have yet to sign on incluessing susan collins, lisa murkowski and mitt romney. >> this is a piece of what republicans have been doing this week. on wednesday you had the house republicans with their domino's teesing storming in the skier room and yesterday this resolution where lindsey graham who understands better that this is part of the process that you conduct these in private and then have a hearing in the senate running interference for the president. >> and lindsey graham is the head of the judiciary committee which is really important to keep in mind as he's out there trying to, i guess, make friends with the president again because senator graham was outspoken on the president's actions when it came to syria and now he's trying to figure out a way to kind of mend that fence and look good in the president's eyes yet once again. because the deadline to run a primary against senator graham

has not yet passed. i think that's probably his deadline. but what the republicans are trying to do, especially in the house, are just disrupt. and they're trying to delay things. it's not working. we ended up when they delayed the testimony of someone, they created five hours where all we talked about was ambassador taylor. so i'm not sure they're very effective. plus, this is the wrong kind of messaging. they look like they're trying to disrupt and not let the process go forward. meaning a meaning, what do you have to hide? it looks like they have to hide a lot. >> none of them are talking about the facts or the evidence or bill taylor's testimony. they don't want to talk about that for obvious reasons. >> usually when people distract it's because they can't deal with the truth. when you're a kid and you do something wrong, you distract your parents because you know if they find out what you did wrong you're going to be punished. and that's the behavior we're seeing here. why are we going tlufl thehroug

these different measures if there's nothing to hide and no reason to bea afraid of the facts coming out? clearly they're trying to hide something. to storm with pizza in your hand a hearing, if that does not make the american people say, wait a minute, what are we hiding here? what else would be -- these are not protesters, these are guys who spent their life arguing against guys like me protesting. now you have a pizza protest in the middle of testimony? it's almost comical if it wasn't really tearing at the fabric of this country. >> plus a third of the people there, the house members, were allowed to be inside the hearing. >> including jim jordan. >> exactly. >> and ask the questions they want. you can't have it both ways. >> so, steve, these -- both of these incidents, the house going with the pizza party and yesterday lindsey graham's resolution followed meetings with the rpresident of the unitd states where they took their orders and we're going to do this and he said go get 'em guys

on twitter. they're just out in the open acting on his behalf. >> we have a president that didn't have any respect for the normal processes and procedures and compartment of how you act as president. i did find the storming of the scif quite a remarkable stage of our life that we've come to this. and just underscore a couple things you said, there will be public hearings in the house. this is simply depositions, the beginning of a process as the rev just said, the republicans get equal time to ask their questions. the president will have his chance, his day in court, so to speak, to present his point of view and this is a totally normal and appropriate process. by the way, the republicans never democrats the right to issue subpoenas when they're in the majority. so this is all being played out exactly, i think, by hoyle's rules, so to speak, and you have a president who doesn't believe in any rules trying to completely undernine because they don't like the substance of it. they talk about the process all the time because they know the substance of what's going on there, especially since bill

taylor's testimony is extraordinarily damaging to them. >> karine, this has all been a week of tells about how damning that testimony from taylor has been when you put together the pizza party, and lindsey graham yesterday with his resolution condemning the entire inquiry, and then the justice department now looking into the 2016 investigation itself. these three pieces coming together to sort of change the conversation. >> that's exactly which right, willie. look, the evidence is overwhelming in this case. and so what republicans are doing is they're making a process argument, which is a failed argument. all you have to do is look at the polling. the polling, the country is moving more and more closer in historical fashion to -- to where democrats are, right? which impeachment inquiry and we see it more than 50% in most of the polling. here's the thing as well, when you look at the house and the impeachment hearings, more of

those nearly 50 republicans that are sitting all -- that are part of the impeachment inquiry that's sitting in those three committees that are part of this impeachment inquiry, that also includes mike pence's brother. he's part of this hearing as well. it includes the republican leader in the house. so it's all -- they're outcry say total and complete joke. and this is the gop ha poc yypo that we're seeing. >> and mike pompeo was in his home state of kansas yesterday. sat down with an interview in which he mostly deflected questions on ukraine and syria. >> bill taylor told congress this week that he sent you a cable on august 29th expression his misgivings in the delay of military aid to ukraine. what did you do with that cable? >> i'm not going to talk about the inquiry this morning. >> so did you relay his concerns to the president? >> look, i came here today to

talk about workforce development, came here today to talk about the great things that are going on here in kansas. >> what good really is the word of the u.s. in light of the president's treatment of the kurds? is that undercut u.s. credibility? >> the whole pred cavity your question is insane. the word of the united states, i'll give you a good example. the word of the united states is much more expected today than it was just 2 1/2 years ago. >> richard, it might be time for the state department to stop putting the secretary out for these local interviews where he's getting crushed by local reporters. it happened in nashville last week as well. but what do you make of the questions he was asked and his unwillingness to answer them? >> he's in an impossible situation which he's put himself in. he wants to give unconditional support to the president, but if he does that he clearly fails in one of his principal tasks which is to defend his own people. and he's taken tremendous heat for it and rightfully so. this is the opposite of tammy wye net, he's not standing by his men or his women.

there's that. and to argue that u.s. reliability and credibility are stronger now than they were 2 1/2 years ago, that's a talking point but that doesn't pass the laugh test. obviously not. so that's what he -- that's where he is. but he's taken on mixed metaphors. he's beginning to take on a lot of water as secretary of state and so he's got a problem. when he goes around the country, he gets attacked. when he goes around the world. so other than washington right now, i'm not sure there's any safe spot for him. >> he says our reputation is better than it's ever been. he's a smart guy, he's been around the world, do you think he believes what he's saying? >> i think he knows better. he graduated first in his class at west point. he was the head of the cia. he's now secretary of state. he's not new to this. he's a professional. my own sense is he knows better.

but if you're going to work with this president, there can't be one bit of daylight between you and the president. and if you're seen in any way less than 101% loyal, you're then in rism tillerson territory or jim mattis territory or some territory where essentially you're beginning to be on the banana peel. so what you're seeing from mike pompeo is the calculated decision that he is going to be there 100% or 100% plus. and the problem is, again, it's not just the credibility of the country that gets weakened, your own credibility gets weakened. >> the job requires total loyalty. we'll talk more about syria in just a minute. still ahead, congressman tim ryan who ended his bid yesterday for the president of the united states. the ohio democrats joins us straight ahead, but first here's bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> once again, california is the focus of these epic fires that continue to burn it these really dry, hot, windy conditions.

yesterday we had two big fires. the tick fire is the one just outside santa clarita just outside of los angeles. this one died down a little bit and now it's flared back up. winds are gusting. the 40 to 50 miles per hour. it just jumped highway 14, the highway is closed now in both directions and there are new mandatory evacuations that are in effect with that fire. the other big blaze yesterday was the kincaid fire. this was further north up in wine country just north of san francisco and north of the napa area. this was one of our nbc photographers trying to get to the heart of the fire. it was moving so fast it jumped highway 148 that they had to stop and turn around. you can see why there. so we continue with the story today. we have extreme fire risk in southern california. these winds are going to gust to 40 to 60 miles per hour starting now and it will go that way all morning long. and then we'll do it again on sunday. and then we'll go to northern california, 6 million people under a high wind watch and they think they have hundreds of thousands, maybe even a million

people possibly in preemptive power outages. they say that it would be the strongest wind of the season sunday. and then the big rain event moving through eastern parts of the country all weekend long. flash flood watch from louisiana to mississippi and that rainy weather will move from the gulf today, tennessee and ohio valley through saturday, and then sunday that soaking rain moves to the northeast. keep that in mind for all of your plans, including the world series there. looks like we should be okay. the rain should be ending in d.c. by the time the game stlarstarts there if we do get rain there. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ing "morni" we'll be right back. a group of s about being a scientist at 3m. i wanted them to know that innovation is not just about that one 'a-ha' moment. science is a process. it takes time, dedication. it's a journey. we're constantly asking ourselves, 'how can we do things better and better?'

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time. he's holding up the papers right there. he was then re-elected to prime minister of dleengland. within a year of signing that agreement, germany invaded poland and world war ii was underway. as i look what's happening with the kurds in the middle east, it is a replay almost word for word the president of the united states comes on the air and he said, i have a peace treat tip, the kurds had the best army to defend for freedom in the middle east and we have allowed it to be disbanded just like happened in czechoslovakia, exactly the same thing. history will repeat itself. the kurds, we have abandoned them. they're being slaughtered by the turks. and we have given a major port

of syria. i promise you as i'm sitting here right now, russia is going to come against us. turkey's going to come against us. china's going to come against us. north korea's going to come against us. >> that was pat robertson comparing president trump to nevel chamberlain yesterday. u.s. forces have been ordered to prepare to provide security for oil fields in the eastern part of syria to keep those fields from falling into the hands of isis. the pentagon says the u.s. will reinforce the area with, quote, additional military assets. the defense official tells nbc news it may include, yes, more troops and battle tanks. a senior defense official tells nbc news that president trump was briefed by top officials on the importance of securing the oil fields so they cannot be seize and used to fund isis activities. i thought the entire rational

for this move was to get the american troops out of syria to end endless wars and now we're sending them in to protect the oil fields. help me sort this out. >> you can't sort it out in the is what happens when you make foreign policy on the fly without a process. one of the reasons you have an interagency process. you have national security meetings is that you're never surprised the things don't always work out well but you anticipate, if we do this then what? and this is an example of what happens, you have telephone calls or you make -- it's improv and what you improv you constantly get surprised. that's what you have here. >> it is true -- this is true that there was a time when the oil was helping to finance isis activities and so the concept is legitimate. but as richard said, there's no pro spets as we sit here at the moment, those fields proper deucing 25,000 barrels a day of oil, we produce 90 billion barrels in the world. >> it's tiny. but seriously, if you're going to have a presence there, this is the least of your concerns. if you kept isis in prison,

which by the way the kurds were doing there are was no problem with the oil fields. if you were going to keep a small number of american troops there, the kurds were safe, the turks are out. what we have done is set in motion a chanin of events with all sorts of consequences there is one of the least of them. and, again, the bigger consequences are u.s. standing in the region and the world. so the idea that we're going to reintroduce a small number of soldiers to guard some oil fields that steve correctly says are minute capability to produce, this is such a twisted now policy that, again, no one should support. >> susan. >> i was just going to say, richard, doesn't this also say a little bit about our values that we are trying -- we're not going to protect the kurds but we'll protect oil or, as trump would say, it's money, i want it, it's mine? >> that's funny. i was involved in government during the gulf war where getting -- we wanted to protect the oil, not for commercial exploitation, but because there

was a major strategic asset. we didn't want saddam to have his hands on so much of the world's oil. even the iraq war 2003 i was in government, i didn't support it. but, again, commercial access to oil was never the goal. again, it was a war, people thought it was misguided i think for good reason they thought so. but, again, it wasn't for narrow commercial use. by the way, american companies for the most part haven't benefited 'the this is the kind of thing that people put out and it's what the left wingers think. they actually think that american foreign policy is this narrow capitalist enterprise. in my experience it almost never is. but it's one of the way this administration is fundamentally different, it's the first administration in post world war ii american history that has put america economic and commercial interest in a narrow sense ahead of strategic interest and ahead of humanitarian interest. this is something that's fundamentally different. >> clearly it's fundamentally different in that area. i think the politics of it, though, becomes interesting when you have pat robertson who

started the segment with who is, you know, very regarded and respected by the evangelicals saying the complete alarmest kind of stance about what donald trump has done, this spells trouble for the white house. i think when you have donald trump and those around him watching a pat robertson and a lindsey graham day after day taking issue with his foreign policy and making the inconsistencies of it apparent, that causes real problems for trump. so i think the politics of it is something very troubling for them because pat robertson is a very well-regarded figure in that particular world. i don't agree with pat robertson on many things, but for him to be that adamant, he's not being, you know, just gentle about it. he is coming straight at the president two or three times saying the hand of god may be

removed from him. that is troubling when you are getting ready to go into the 2020 election. >> you're right. he's been on this for weeks talking about it every day. >> every day. >> addressing the president directly. rick tyler, the problem, i guess, is that the decision has been made so lindsey graham can go into the white house and you roll the maps and explain to the president why this is a bad idea, can he get chastised by pat robertson on tv, but this is well down the road and in motion. >> a couple things. the president's foreign policy is consistent, but it's consistently incoherent. i want to ask richard haass, because i think in many ways this is worse than any of he will nevel chamberlain, because he's was talking about austria, it was a german speaking country that sounds a lot like ukraine. but the events that happen that

happened afterwards, we know who putin is and what he's going to do. we know erdogan and what he's going to do. these events are predictable. you said surprise, it wasn't a surprise. it rolled out how people expected it should have rolled out. >> no argument there. the than jim mattis when he was in government opposed all this, this was obvious. the turks didn't hide what their intentions were. we knew what their capabilities were. we knew the kurds couldn't stand up to them. we knew that the kurds would turn to the syrian government for support. the syrian government is backed by iran and russia. all of this is predictable. again, the president seemed to want to have a talking point that he'd brought american troops out of there and that the consequences be damned. i don't know if he was surprised by any of the consequences, but you're right, they were predictable. >> all right. coming up, the president launches a new attack against the press and, again, compares

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they give pulitzer prizes to people that got it wrong, okay. all these people doing for "the new york times," which is a fake up in, we don't even want it in the white house anymore, going to probably terminate that and "the washington post," they're fake. so when i won, they actually apologized to their subscribers because they were loses thousands and thousands of subscribers. "the new york times" wrought an apology, nothing else. they were saying well, it wasn't really an apology but it was because they covered me so badly. and then what i said, the good news is now i'll be covered fairly again. you know what happened? i got covered worse. i got covered worse. but that's okay. you know what got it worse than me they say? abraham lincoln. it used to be five or six, now it's down to one. abraham lincoln. they say he got the worst press of anybody.

i say i dispute it. >> president trump allude together action he took yesterday. the white house announced its plans to instruct federal agencies to not renew their subscriptions to the new york times and "the washington post." white house press secretary stephanie grisham said in a statement, quote, not renewing subscriptions across all federal agencies will be a significant cost savings. hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars will be saved. but as many "washington post" reporters pointed out on twitter, the post offers a free digital subscription to anyone with a dot gov or dot mil email address. joining us now, eugene scott and jim vandehei. jim, i'll groit et to you in a moment. gene, are you enjoying free subscriptions with "the washington post" these days? >> we are. we have people who are engaged

as well as the washington nationals and people are concerned about what's happening in government, the national level, globally, also state level as well. and so people have come to "the washington post" trusting that our reporting ultimately ends up being confirmed even when the president disputes it and pushes back on it. and they've come to realize that this is where they need to be if they really do -- are concerned about what's happening in our country right now. >> "new york times" as well, just to clarify in the president's point. so, jim, let me go to you on your exclusive look at axios. it's what's many this upcoming back from the anonymous senior white house official. i guess you got your hands on some of the reporting. what'd you find? >> one, that the anonymous before actually the book comes out they're going to do an interview. they're calling on other officials to go public. what's most interesting is there is notes, extensive notes from oval office meetings, frequent

oval office meetings between this personnd the president. and in the wobook the person sa the most damning thing to donald trump you can do is to let people hear what he says closed doors. this person was of high enough ranking that they sat in the oval office many times, took those noetstes and they'll be revealed in the book. next month you'll have this book come out, you'll have the impeachment hearings, at least a portion of them start to go public. so you're going to start to hear from people inside the white house who were there, who are first-hand witnesses to what's unfolded. as you know and you talk about on the show, there's not been that many people who left the white house and talked candidly about what life on the inside was like and how some of these decisions were made. think that's one of the reasons that the president's so agitated and did that stupid thing of saying you're not going to take the subscriptions at agencies for up in. what a newspaper dollars.

what a waste the machinery for people to save the exercise to save a couple pennies when we have a trillion dollar deficit. but the reason it happens is the continued agitation that he feels like people all around him are leaking and anticipates getting a raw deal. >> hey there, jim. wanted to ask you what is the white house doing to push back on this book? like what's their plan? how are they going to try and, you know, contrast what's in this -- what's in this book that's coming out the next month? >> i think it will be the same as you see with a lot of the people that come forward in the impeachment proceedings. they just say it's disgruntled never trumpers, it's democrats, it's hacks, it's people you can't trust. and i think that is the strategy that they've sort of imposed on the whole impeachment process. there's really not that much else you can do because they don't know who this person is, best we can tell. they don't know who a lot of the sources for these stories that they're agitated about that are in different publications are

and that's a huge source of frustration. because they've been able to pretty adeptly been able to control what gets out and what doesn't get out for at least in a public setting from people of who left. and a lot of that is done through fee of. on axios hbo last week, mitt romney was talking about how a lot of people don't speak out, how almost nobody in the senate speaks out because they do worry that they're going to get primaried. they worry that it could end up costing conservatives any control in governance. that's been a powerful motivator to keep republicans silent. that's where this new ship, we don't know what will happen with impeachment proceedings or what will happen in terms of the trial in the senate, but we do know that for the first time there's a lot of stuff getting aired publicly that wasn't before. and so this really is a different chapter. >> and, eugene, as jim points out, this is first hand stuff in the is somebody who's in the room with donald trump and it adds to this growing collection of documents that we have now about how president trump runs his white house, how he makes

decisions, whether it's the whistleblower report or that summary of the phone call that was put out or now all these depositions, all this testimony in the impeachment inquiry, there are people stepping out in most cases putting their names to it but in this case anonymous in saying here's what i saw, here's why i think it was bad. >> absolutely. despite much of the criticism coming from trump towards democrats, and even the mainstream media, so much that we know about this white house that's been truly concerning, if not problematic for many people, have come from insiders. they've come from leakers, they've come from people who have had a front rope seat w se what the president has done and seen what he's done with this country. if he wants to improve his perception and approval with people outside of his tribe, he really has to look internally at the people that he has brought on board to help implement his vision who look at it and say, actually, this is not what is best for america. >> yeah. and more to come, perhaps, if

john bolton, for example, sits and gives testimony in this impeachment inquiry. eugene scott, jim vandehei, thank you both. tonight is game three of the world series the. the houston astros have fired one of their top executives ahead of that game. we'll tell you why next on "morning joe." ll you why next n "morning joe." this seat? this seat is reserved for the restless. those who need to move. and roar.

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welcome back to "morning joe" on a friday morning. the houston astros have fired assistant general manager brandon toddman for yelling bay pitcher suspended for domestic violence at a group of female reporters during a clubhouse celebration after the team clinched the world series berth. stephanie wrote that toddman had shouted thank god we got asuna along with some explatives after they clinched the world series

champion against the yankees. he was suspended five games last year before he was traded from toronto to the astros. the astros said they initially believed the remarks were not directed toward any reporter and the astros defended him. but yesterday the team released a statement saying after conducting interviews, it had substantiated the claims rigwrig we were wrong. we apologize to stephanie's sports illustrate and to all of the individuals who witnessed this conduct. the astros in no way wanted to mitigate this. they reached out to him after he was fired for his comment but we did not hear back. karine, no, i you've bei know y covering this story and overshadowed the astros taking the lead in the series.

>> i'm glad he was fired, but it took too long. he should have been fired the next day. this speaks to a much broader problem that the mlb has which is in the light of the national domestic awareness month too which is also kind of in the backdrop. this pitcher should never have been hired. he has a history of domestic violence. so the organization has a lot more to answer to. and this is incredibly problematic. and so it is -- i'm glad he's fired, but it's not the end. there's more to this. >> yes, we should point out osuna was charged with assault in may of 2018. those charges were dropped last september. the woman in question here, the victim, was -- she lives in mexico and so now talkman ubman longer with the team. rick, i know you've got to run,

what are you look at? >> the democrats need to explain ha these meetings or hearings are, these depositions that are taking place away from the public eye. it's that we don't have an independent counsel law so that would normally -- this investigation would normally take place out of public site with the individual counsel. it's tantamount to a grand jury investigation and they haven't explained it very well. and they need to speed up the process because it's the process that donald trump is adept at attacking and if he gets in runway to attack the process he gets to undermine it. that's what he did in the mueller investigation. they can't threat happen here. >> i think that's why democrats have signaled they're going to have hearings coming up next month once they've collected all this evidence and taken these depositions. rick tyler, thank you very much. coming up, vice president mike pence weighed in on the situation in syria yesterday saying our troops are coming home. but, there's no reporting the pentagon is planning to send tanks and armored vehicles to syria, plus the doj's office of

legal counsel has issued opinions that a sitting president is can not be indicted what about an attorney for the president? talk about what an indictment of rudy giuliani might look like. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. e. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. us excellenr service, every time. our 18 year old was in an accident. usaa took care of her car rental, and getting her car towed. all i had to take care of was making sure that my daughter was ok. if i met another veteran, and they were with another insurance company, i would tell them, you need to join usaa because they have better rates, and better service. we're the gomez family... we're the rivera family... we're the kirby family, and we are usaa members for life. get your auto insurance quote today. it's a lifelong adventure finding all of these new connections all the time. greater details. richer stories. and now with health insights. get your dna kit at ancestry.com.

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now in one pot, and with tendercrisp technology, you can cook foods that are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. the ninja foodi pressure cooker, the pressure cooker that crisps. turkey's ministry of defense confirmed a permanent ceasefire and a halt of all offensive military operations. our troops are coming home. it is progress indeed.

>> our troops are coming home. that's vice president mike pence talking about syria yesterday. but in addition to the ceasefire appearing not to hold, defense secretary marc esper has said publicly many times that the troops pulled from syria are not heading back to the united states, instead, are currently on their way to iraq. after that, they still aren't coming home. according to a statement released by the iraqi prime minister's office, after meeting with esper this week, those troops in question will leave iraq within four weeks and head to kuwait or qatar. with us we have former treasury official steve rattner. president of the counsel on foreign relations richard haass. republican strategist suss san del percio, the host of msnbc politics nation and president of the action network reverend al sharpton. senior adviser of moveon.org karine jean tee, a, and coauthor of the play back jake sherman and columnist for "the

washington post." mika and joe are off to attend the funeral of elijah cummings. richard, i would add in the reports yesterday that the united states is sending troops to protect -- and tanks, by the way, to protect the oil fields of syria, anything but coming home and ending an endless war, as president trump put it. >> what this is is the follow on of stroothic strategic coherenc it's a strategy calamity for the united states. now we're talking about possibly some troops going back in to, quote unquote, protect oil fields rather than people. this is trying to put the best possible face on a flawed and failed policy. it's almost that simple. >> and, jennifer, you're wrieptiwriep writing about this as well, and the argument's i'm ending an

endless war, he's not, he thought that would go over with the american public better than it be has and people like lindsey graham. >> i think the president did this impulsively. i'm not sure he thought this through or cared to think it through. but it has boomer ranged on him. this is a rare showing of bipartisan opposition to the president. couple weeks ago we had 129 house members vote to essentially condemn this move. and i think richard is exactly right, we're not getting the troops home. we have lost i think face and lost influence in the region. the kurds are now being decimated. and, of course, there are isis prisoners who are now been let loose. and the president very cavalierly says well they can go to europe, who cares? i think the europeans care and we should care as well. >> yeah, that was an extraordinary moment when defense secretary esper said this week, well, the prison break of isis fighters hasn't been as bad as we thought was going to be.

as if to say we knew there was going to be prison breaks. >> but it five times the terrorists that pulled off 9/11. but we wereening maing it well. we had a handful of soldiers with the kurds and others. what the president has done is lit a fuse that will make this war, it will cause it to escalate overtime and extend it. this is a policy that will achieve the direct opposite outcome of what it pretends to have been motivated by. >> but i think what we really have to deal with at core here is we have a president who has built his presidency on just wins in terms of public perception and optics rather than dealing with basic things like human life. i mean, we're playing with whether or not terrorists can break out or not and we're arguing about, well, a hundred broke out rather than two hundred. we're talking about terrorists. we're talking about people that will kill people.

we're talking in afghanistan about a withdrawal oh they have to go this way. he's playing games like this is some checkerboard game for kids when we're dealing with human life. and we, as a country, are better than that. i think that when we get down to where we're just playing with politics and optics rather than flesh and blood we lose our moral standing in the world, which is what made us respected in the first place. >> we have a president with no morals, that's part of the problem. i think this is a president who is comfortable with the idea of just dealing with things within the parameter of our u.s. border. he does not understand, never wlaer learned ha happened arointd tun world. he wants to keep the focus at home because he's clueless of what's going on. >> i would agree with that and it's not as much a question of being clueless, which he is, it's a question of him defining

american interests in the narest possible, shortest term way, that he can define them. if it isn't good for us today, we should get out of it, whether it's the middle east, trade, whatever it is. >> good for me, the way i look politically, not even good for us. it's not about us, it's about does it spell well for me politically? do i perceive to have brought us home and end the war that wouldn't end even though it's not ending anything, he's just transporting people around. >> but i would say this thing with the kurds is going to end bad for him politically. this is one where he got wrong politically as well as substantive. >> i it all started with a single phone call from president erdogan changed the direction of syria. let's look at the nebraska new nbc monkey poll, americans voters divided over president trump's potential impeachment. according to the poll, registered voters are split 49 to 49 on the question of whether president trump should be impeached and removed from office. broken down by party, a majority

of democrats, 89% say trump should be impeached and removed from office. the number is 53% among independents and only 9% of republicans agree. jake sherman, i'll let you take it away on these numbers and also on what you've been witnessing over the last few days in capitol hill, perhaps because of these numbers. >> yeah. listen, this is the traditional divide of america. half the country supports the president, half doesn't on most days and most presidents. and this is why if you talk to most democrats and many republicans, frankly, they want the -- democrats want the impeachment proceedings or some version of them in public and not behind closed doors. and it's a republican talking point, no doubt, that they are doing this secretly. but the political imperative is, and democrats recognize this, because they said this for months, nancy pelosi said this for months. the political imperative is to make the case to the american people that the president is deserving of impeachment. whatever you think of

impeachment, there's definitely some uncertainty about whether the public is fully behind it or not. and i don't know how it will be done. there's a lot of questions right now about what a public face of impeachment would look like, who would testimony, and that's a big question that the democrats have to answer. who could they convince to go in front of a committee which will be on every television cable network on tv for hours at a time, who could they conzroins that a convince to speak out against the president? bill taylor, the current ambassador to ukraine would be somebody perhaps the democrats would seek. perhaps john bolton who the committees are talking about private deposition, that would be a powerful moment. and what we've been witnessing on capitol hill is a circus. and you have republicans trying to break into secure areas of the capitol to make a point that these, you know, these hearings are secret. it's quite strange, it's really turned into a circus of stunts. but democrats recognize that they need to change course at

some point and begin making these points to the public to not only bolster their case externally, but also internally. and they need to do it soon because there are only 20 something legislative days before the end of this year. the government is about to shut down on november 21st. they want to a trade deal. there's a lot to be done in not a lot of time and people believe they cannot afford to bring impeachment into 2020. we'll have to see how they hand that will in the coming days an weeks. >> jennifer, the question is should president trump be impeached and removed from office, this is not just support for the impeachment inquiry, this is people who have made up their minds that he ought to be removed from office. independent number jumps out a bit, 53% support that notion. >> it is. it's somewhat remarkable that the numbers in favor of impeachment and, as you say, explicitly removal are as high as they are because we haven't seen these people testify in public. so it's remarkable that the country has moved as far as it has. i think when the individuals who

have come forth to testify turn out in public, they will be impressive from everything we've heard from the republicans, everything we've heard from the democrats and what we haven't heard from the republicans, these are very impressive people with long careers in government. they are not partisans, they have credibility. in some cases as in bill taylor's case, he took copious notes during the process. i think it will have an impact and it will move opinion to some degree or another. i think it's indicative of the lack of game plan, the lack of substantive response that the republicans have seized upon this very flawed talking point that it's in secret. well, there are a bunch of republicans in there as well so it's not a very well kept secret. there are republicans on these hearings. and moreover, as we've said, this is sort of the grand jury phase of things. and when they're done with that, you're going to see it out in public and you'll see a public trial in the senate which mitch

mcconnell has indicated would take weeks. >> jake, you've seen it up close. you had senators, lindsey graham yesterday introducing this resolution and then the pizza riot a couple of days ago. when you talk to them privately because neither of those addressed the substance, for example, of what bill taylor said. when you talk to republicans privately, do they express concerns about some of the testimony? because i note they're not really attacking bill taylor's credibility as a witness or the substance of what he says. >> yeah, absolutely. i mean, what you're seeing is you're seeing a defense that is being launched and being posited because they don't have a defense of the president's actions or coherent defense of the president's actions. and i think what you see more broadly is that very few people want to defend on substance because they don't know what's around the corner, right? they don't know what else people are going to say, what other things are going to come up in these closed testimony's or in news reports going forward. so why would members of congress who's chief objective is to get elected, let's be blunt, their

chief objective is to get replekter re-elected, why would they stick up for a president that's not been up front with them? most americans do not make a distinction between impeachment and removal from office so i would not put much stock in the fact that it's worded impeachment and removal from office because most people see that as one in the same. i think that's a pretty. that poll is striking, but think it's a closer test of just how -- what people believe about this process and about whether the president has done wrong and, still, for those numbers are still striking even given that i don't think that people make that distinction between impeachment, which is charging, and removal from office, which the senate is responsible to do. >> and, karine, the number on those poels polls we've seen on impeachment have been consistent and the one from nbc news sort of lines up with where we've been for a couple of weeks. >> that's right. it's historical, the way these numbers have moved in the last

few weeks when nancy pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry. i mean, that say real thing. and i think, like jennifer was saying, we have -- we're not even in the public hearing stage. we're just getting information that is being leaked out of these hearings. and my question to you, jennifer, have you been in conversation with any of these republican congressional members, you yourself being a conservative and having -- know a lot of these people, do they say anything about what's going on that could give us light about what they're thinking? >> i think they're osh saysed with this process issue and they say it in private and in public in particular because they do not know what to say. we've seen a couple republicans who have spoken out, like mitt romney, and frankly john thune at one point expressed concern. he's in the leadership in the senate. and they really are, i think, quite bothered by the substance that has come out. they don't know what to say. they cannot really in all good

conscience go before the american people and say it's okay to extort an ally to get help getting re-elected. even for them that may be a bridge too far. so i think they're grasping at straws. but as jake said, this has a very short timeline on this kind of an tick because when they come public, we're going to see it all. so it will be very interesting and i do begin to wonder whether there's going to be a little bit more support for impeachment from the republicans in the senate. i don't think you're going to get to 20, but i wouldn't be surprised if you see after everything that's come out and public opinion moves further, if you have -- still ahead on "morning joe," two former u.s. attorneys join our conversation with their take on what a potential indictment of rudy giuliani might look like. you're watching "morning joe." might look like. you're watching "morning joe." trucks... and suvs.

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are you concerned that rudy giuliani could be indicted in all of this? >> well, i hope not. >> that was president trump at the white house earlier this month when asked by reporters if he was concerned that his personal attorney rudy giuliani would be indicted for his role in matters involving ukraine. joining us now, former u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama and an msnbc contributor, joyce vance. and, former u.s. attorney from the eastern district of michigan, also an msnbc contributor, barbara mcquade in the new piece for "just security" they draft a mock indictment based on publicly available evidence of alleged misconduct by giuliani in which president trump appears as an alleged coconspiracy. great to have you both with us. after reading this i realize i don't want to be in either of your crosshairs given the research you've done here. let me start with you, joyce, and why you set out do this. you handed down a mock three-count indictment. what'd you see to put you through this exercise? >> we thought it would be

interesting to compare the publicly available information with what the law prohibits in this area. what we've learned is that based on simply the publicly available information, it was clear that rudy giuliani was involved in at least two different conspiracies with the president. to us, that seemed significant. we know that prosecutors who are actually conducting an investigation would have access to much more information. it might tend to prove guilt for more crimes, it might tend in some areas to make it look as though an individual hadn't committed a crime. but, to us, it was a significant moment to say that the president's attorney was actively involved in criminal conduct. >> barbara, it's susan del percio. i have a question regarding what if. what if you had the information to really come up with a document to charge rudy giuliani, what would be the three things that are currently not in the public that you think would just seal the deal, if you

will? >> well, i think, number one, you won't wa ant to find out mo what's happening with the two people being charged in new york. they in a position to cooperate so i would want to explore with them whether they're interested in cooperating to talk about this indictment and their names are included in this indictment. they would be protected in a real indictment. but they made some introductions for giuliani to some of the people he was talking with in ukraine. what can they tell us about his role here and possibly in other crimes like campaign finance violations 'so the that would be one thing. i would want to scour the depositions of all of the state department officials who have been testifying on capitol hill and any others who might come along to see what, if anything, they're saying about giuliani. and, of course, we include in this mock indictment some allegations about individual one who you don't have to read too far between the lines to understand is president trump himself. and so are there things that

giuliani can tell us or others can tell us that advance the impeachment case? >> it's steve rattner, joyce. in a criminal case you have to prove whatever it is you're alleging beyond a reasonable doubt. do you think based on what we know and what you think we might know, how close do you think we are or you would be if you were the prosecutor to having the kind of information that could prove something beyond a reasonable doubt? >> so much of this conduct happens in public view, we have tweets from rudy giuliani, for instance, that area alleged as overt acts. that means that conduct that the coconspirators engaged in along the way that's proof of the agreement, proof of the intent to engage in criminal activity. that's the sort of information that prosecutors would put in front of a jury. here we know it's evidence beyond a reasonable doubt because we have it for everyone to see sitting out on twitter.

so, look, i think it's -- in some ways it's important for barb and me both to say that what we're doing is based on what's publicly available. there could be other information that prosecutors are privy too t. but just what's publicly available, this looks like compelling proof, proof beyond a reasonable doubt. >> i want to talk about the lead story in today's papers about the attorney general going back to 2016 and now positioning this or classifying this as a criminal inquiry as to what might have take he place. could you say a little bit about ha this means th ha this means and that it's now being seen through a criminal lens and what the implications are? >> to make a case criminal you can't do it on a hunch or an opinion or a desire to give somebody a hard time. it has to be based on objective facts which is called predication to begin a criminal

investigation. so there's something that tells william barr and john durham that there is predication here. so that's one thing. on the other hand, it concerns me deeply that people within the government who are investigating cases can be investigated themselves criminally. i worry about the chilling effect that that can have on people going forward. you know, there is an adage that says when you shoot at the king you best not miss. i worry that those who targeted president trump for what they believed was a genuine threat to the united states national security are now being targeted simply because they weren't successful in out offing president tru ousting president trump from office. >> some people have said he could raise the question of immunity -- not immunity but privilege of the president of the united states. how do you play with that in terms of where do you draw the

line as him being privacy counsel and where the information is privileged and he does not have to come forward and bring certain information because he's protected by privilege? >> i suppose we'd have to talk theoretically about two kinds of privilege. the first is this executive privilege that we've seen the white house try to assert before. but giuliani doesn't work for government, he's not a white house employee. executive privilege seems farfetched here. so i think your question focuses more on this notion of attorney-client privilege. >> right. >> that, i think, is very sketchy when it comes to giuliani. because, for one thing, he has to be providing legal advice. and this looks more like he's acting as a fixer than acting as an attorney. is he talking with the president about the law or is he just in ukraine building relationships and trying to get them on board for this corrupt act of opening

an investigation so that the aid that congress has voted for them will be released? it really doesn't look like it meets that threshold for legal assistance in the first place. and even then there would be requirements that any conversations that they had were confidential, a lot of this is discussed in public and also that the advice wasn't being given in an effort to cover up a criminal act, which also seems like a problem here. so i'd say that three strikes you're out, attorney-client privilege doesn't apply here. >> so many legal questions for both of you. unfortunately we're out of time so i can't ask you about a federal judge asking a trump attorney in new york this week if the president could shoot someone on fifth avenue and get away with it. the attorney said, yes, absolutely. joyce vance, barbara mcquade, thank you both. great to see you. coming up, president trump boasted this week that the average american income has skyrocketed under his presidency. well, steve rattner has some charts on that. plus, congressman tim ryan is standing by.

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ifrmg i don't know if anybody saw the household median income in those eight years of president bush. for eight years of president obama, it rose $975. for 2 1/2 years of president trump they have it down at 2 1/2 years, it rose $5,000, not including $2,000 for taxes. so it rose let's say 7,000. so in 2 1/2 years we're up 7,000 compared to 1,000 compared to 400. and that's for eight years and eight years. that's a number that just came out, but that's a number that i don't know how there could be any dispute -- i've never heard of a number like that. >> back of the envelope with president trump in his cabinet meeting on monday making that claim about the median household income under his leadership. steve rattner has some charts on that. what'd you find? >> well, we find not surprisingly that the numbers that mr. trump cited were, shall we say, a little bit acc sage

rated. let's talk about how he actually performed. and so let's start with the tax issue. the $2,000 for an average american is true if you happen to be in the top 20% of americans who have actually gotten $7,640. but for everybody else below the top 20%, you fell short of this $2,000 line that i am drawing in here for the average american you clocked in at $930. a good bit less than 2,000. and, of course, if you're below the middle of the country you're at $380 and then down as low as $60. so 2016 was a myth unless, again, you happen to be in the tw top 20%. let's turn to the income and how much he says he generated. he claims he generated $5,000 and, which is this bar. but, in fact, the research he actually used which we found only came in at 4,100.

his own research he took and exaggerated. but if you use numbers from the census bureau, you get much different numbers. you get $1,400 for two years and then if you gross that up or extend it for 2 1/2 years, extrapolate, whatever you want to call it, you get to $1,750. so, again, far less than the $5,000 in the is all after adjusting for inflation. >> so the broad argument with the tax cut, because critics said it would benefit the wealthy and help corporations was that that money would find its way to middle income americans. what you're showing in those first two is that it hasn't or at least hasn't as much as the president claims it has? >> that's right. first of all he claimed this week it was 5,000 and treasury put out a study heil they were debating the tax cut claiming it would raisin comes by 4,000. it hasn't done that either. that is true, the tax cut has neither directly and the tax benefit nor in incomes helped them. but let's look lastly at some

interesting data about who actually is inside -- what people have gotten inside of this $1,400 that i mentioned per person. and i've picked out a few very important battleground states to essentially show something that i think you talked about briefly yesterday, which is that when you look at the battleground states, the ones that could make a difference in this election, you find, in fact, that many of them have substantially underperformed the national average. and that includes florida, which has come close, but then pennsylvania, michigan, and ws, which as we know are the three states that put trump over the line have committed incomes substantially below the national average. and one thing inside of that is that they've lost a lot of these states have lost manufacturing jobs. so pennsylvania has lot of 7,700 manufacturing jobs. wisconsin has lost over 5,000 manufacturing jobs. there was also "wall street journal" study that looked at 77

counties that were important trump counties and they found than i comes in those counties have grown by much less, in some cases declined compared to the national average. the irony of all of this is that trump is actually doing least of all economically in the states with the voters in the districts that actually elected him. so far he's still popular and very popular in those places, but we'll see how that translates when we get to the election. >> is it fair and accurate to say that as preiktddicted by a of people, the tax cut has benefited rich and corporations. >> you saw the numbers, less than a thousand dollars directly to people. incomes rising, but yeah, but they did rise under obama and it's not clear they're rising much faster under this administration. >> let's bring into this conversation, democratic congressman tim ryan of ohio. yesterday he ended his bid to become president of the united states. congressman, it's great to see you. walk us through from you would, your decision-making process here. you got into the race hopeful coming from ohio, you had a good

message to people to sell with the way people were disillusioned with the way the country was headed. why did you decide to end your run? >> i ran out of money. it's pretty simple. i think we ran a good campaign, i think we had a good message. we were on the ground in some early states like new hampshire and south carolina really connecting with voters, but the way the, you know, the debate system was set up, you know, i don't think it helps a dark horse like me because people are only given money if you're on the debate stage. and so, in my opinion, it disrupted a lot of the natural flow of a campaign. but we got the message out. i think it's important that we recognize what steve was just saying, there are a lot of people in this country who are forgotten, who are left behind. and i think president trump's really running into a problem here. he's touting this economy like it's really going well, but that comes up against people's pocketbook and their everyday

reality. and we need to expose that and have a plan for them moving into the future. that's how question beat this guy. >> let's talk about mayes whawhg on in judges toyoungstown, ohio what are they feeling when you're on the ground talking to them? >> well, we lost the general motors plant here that had close to 4,000 workers when president trump got inaugurated and that entire plant is gone now. those were the best paying jobs in the mahomesing valley. and and those jobs are gone. they were 30 bucks an area, good benefits, nice retirement. so the ripple effect from those jobs throughout the community is still being felt. and so i think a lot of people are turned off, president trump really didn't weigh in at all. he was hear a couple years ago telling everybody not to sell their home, he was going to bring these jobs back. and we lost the best jobs in the

community. and, look, i can't blame president trump for everything, he didn't create all these problems, globalization, automation, all the structural things we're dealing with. but he has absolutely no plan as to what's next in the united states to help rebuild the middle class. and so i think these voters are starting to look at the complete chaos, not that they're immersed in it like we are every single day with impeachment and russia and all this stuff. but they're watching the chaos in washington and they're watching their standard of living stay the same or get worse. and so that's the opening, i think, for the democratic nominee to expose trump on this. and i think we can put ohio back in play, quite frankly. and that would be a big issue for president trump to have to deal with, not just pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, but also ohio. >> rev. >> congressman ryan, first, let me say i think you ran a great campaign and i got to know you. i think your voice is certainly needed. on that issue, don't you think

the democrats need to focus in on exactly what you just said was going on in youngstown with the gm plant, exactly what steve rattner's graph show, is that is forget the hype. we keep talking about trump shooting somebody on 5th avenue. he's got a broadway act. he's conning us and telling us that we're doing better than we are and that the democrats ought to have people focus on are you really doing better than you were doing 2 1/2 years ago? look at the facts. isn't that the message your campaign tried to come up with and the message that they need to zero in on to compare the facts to the con game that donald trump is playing on everyone? >> yeah, exactly. and you can't -- we can't heal the economy. you can't improve and rebuild the middle class in a divided country. and so the message has got to be, look, we have to work with the business community. look, we have to work with closing the skills gap. there are good jobs out there,

but we also have to get people trained up. we've got to invest in education and infrastructure like the bread and butter stuff. and people are struggling with healthcare, prescription drugs, pensions. i mean, this is bread and butter politics. we've ghost to we've got to be talking about what's on the minds of the people in the united states and we can't get distracted by the side show. if we're going win this thing, i think it's going to be the economic argument, it's going to be talking about an aspirational agenda for people in this country, how we can help them, how we can make their lives better. i know there's a lot of talk about revolutions and all of this, the revolution is getting donald trump out of the white house. that in and of itself will be a revolution in the united states. you know, the worst thing question do for the environment is to have donald trump as president for the next four years. so the focus has got to be, how do we beat this guy? who's the best candidate for us to beat donald trump? and all of these other problems

will move aside because we can start healing the country and fixing. but it's got to be the bread and butter stuff that you mentioned. >> richard haass. >> congressman, in the last couple days you've had a lot of us concerned about what's going on in the middle east, just yesterday the vice president gave the most comprehensive speech on u.s./china relations that we've heard from this administration for a year. there's all sorts of issue about russia, you name it. to what extent did you find that when you were talking to voters, any of that click, that are there was any resonance of those issues that they understood what was happening in the world would have tremendous implications for people in your state and what was happening in the world, the deterioration was something not in their interest? was there any connection on this? any interest in it? >> first, let me say, richard, i just finished your book and it was amazing and i really enjoyed it and i think it outlines and illustrates exactly what's haps

happening in t happening in the world and how complicated it is and what's happening on the ground. i think people have to take this in the context of the china because china is symbolic of globalization, they're symbolic of automation, they're symbolic of a country who's coming after us to clean our clock economically. they're making the big investments into the belt road initiative, into the make it in china 2025 investments in additive manufacturing and ai and all of these future, oriented technologies. while the united states is sitting on our hands. that's the opening to create this. i've given speeches about this all over the country about what china is doing, the investments they're making, and how they have a ten-year plan, a 20-year plan, a 50-year plan and i hundred-year plan. in donald trump's america we're

living nay 24-hour news cycle. guess who twhaiwins that game? the people who plate long game. they have a technology policy, infrastructure policy, they tie their investments into s.t.e.m. and education and research into the goals of building out those technologies. so they have a very comprehensive agenda. i think people on the ground understand that. i don't think they understand the details of it, but they know china is coming after us. you know, we see them dumping steel and dumping products into our country. but there's no plan on our side. and, again, i think that's the opening. people want to know -- i think this election's going to be a lot like '92 and james used to say, you've got to explain it to them. we've got to explain to the american people what the plan is to reorient our economy and to rebuild the middle class. so they have an understanding not in detail, but definitely with the competition against china. >> congressman, you said a minute ago the objective for democrats should to be pick the candidate who has the best chance to beat donald trump.

i think a lot of democrats agree with you on that. a lot of people watching this show probably agree with you on that. they respect your voice, you've been inside the process. is a candidate you believe has the best chance to beat donald trump? >> yeah, he just got out of the race, willie. [ laughter ] >> with the exception of yourself, congressman. >> i'm going to be looking at all the candidates, obviously i know them really well and, you know, i will be weighing in at some point soon but we'll catch our breath and make a decision here in the gnu near future. >> congressman tim ryan, your voice is needed in this conversation. you come from a place and you understand these problems better than a lot of people. good for you for running for president and we'll see you down the road. >> thanks. thanks, willie. take care. >> all right, congressman. thank you. before we go, richard haass, you were talking about this vice president pence sound bite. talking about china and the nba.

i want to play it for you and get your reaction. >> insiding with the chinese communist party and silencing prespeech, the nba is acting like a wholly owned subsidiary over that authoritarian regime. >> what do you make of it? >> the nba did get wrong footed on this initially. it was more interested in opening up the china market than it was in standing by its players. that said, the administration criticisms of the nba or anyone else would be a lot more powerful if this administration stood consistently for human rights and free speech around the world. selectivity here undermines the power of your voice. he was tough on china for its export facial recognition software for what they're doing or not doing in hong kong. but where's the criticisms of turkey, russia, saudi arabia? you kont be selectively moral.

the outrage loses its power. >> but you also can't come down rightfully so on what china is doing and hong kong and the facial recognition and then have at the same time say china ought to be investigating certain things. you can't have it both ways. this is the same white house that wanted china to intervene and investigate what's going on in terms of everyone from the clintons to biden from the president himself. so which way are you going to have it, mr. pence? >> and it was vice president pence who walked out on a football game as players took the knee expressing their own freedom of speech. so the whole thing is hypocritical. >> he flew there to talk out. still to come on "morning joe," how the three republican contenders hoping to oust president trump are planning to win the millennial vote in the 2020 election. "morning joe" coming right back. e 2020 election. "morning joe" coming right back.

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welcome back to "morning joe". the three republicans challenging donald trump for the nomination for president will take the stage in detroit this sunday as the forbes under-30 summit in an effort to reach millennial voters. joining us one of the moderators of the conversation, chief content of forbes and founder of 30 under 30, randall lane. good to see you. >> good to see you too. >> what do you want to know from the collection of people with the unlikely task of unseating president trump? >> it is unlikely but there's an audience for it. we have 10,000 of the greatest young leaders the world coming to detroit and they're voting. in 2018, people are talking about the rest belt, millennials

and gen z coming into the voting pool are motivated. they're left but not necessarily sold on the democratic party. heave you ha here we have the human skumcum,e never trump republicans and we will have a debate as to why these should get the votes. >> do you find that the voters under 30 are energized over any specific issue over another or just the idea of removing donald trump from office? >> it is the idea nothing is getting done and they are -- you know, several thousand of these people in detroit will be alived into talived -- alive into the 22nd century. they will be around in 80 years and they can't see what is going to happen in ten years. who is addressing the problems long term? who is giving solutions? there is a yearning for answers, for long-term strauk tuucture s.

>> careen has a question for you. >> as you know, this is a voting block difficult to motivate. i think obama was the last kind of candidate to excite millennials and young people under 30. it is hard to see how these guys will be engaged. what is it? like is it climate change, is it gun reform? what is it that's going to move them in 2020? >> climate change is a big issue, and it is a great point. that's the kind of long-term problem that, again, some of us who are over 30 say, okay, that will be a problem for my kids or my grand kids, but they're looking at it saying, what kind of world am i going to live in, is there going to be disruption. no one is addressing long-term issues. they're looking for inspiration, they're looking for someone to say it will be okay. a study showed 50% of millennials and 50% of gen z

have high anxiety across all parties. they're anxious. obama inspired young people because there was a positivity and there were answers and solutions. that's what they're looking for. they're looking for somebody to say, hey, we're not just trying to solve the problem of tomorrow, but we're actually going to come up with something so you can live in a world where you can thrive and you can be entrepreneurial and you can succeed. >> randall, a two-part question because i'm very impressed with this gathering. but one is do you think the republicans have failed to really come and take advantage of the fact that a lot of millennials and gen z that i talk to in my work with national action network don't trust the leadership of the democratic party for whatever reason and they've not been able to give them a reason to therefore come with them. secondly, how diverse is this conference. >> of? >> yes. >> how inclusive is it of people

because there's the racial and gender divide even among millennials and gen z. >> i will take the second part. we are in detroit, a resurgent city that we're proud to be there. 30 to 40% of people of color, we have serena, kevin durant, 21 savage, so a great, great line-up because it is an audience that demands diversity. diversity and inclusivity is super duper important. that's what they're looking for. that's why wells and walsh are coming from the republican party, because if the republican party is to remain a viable party long term and that's why these guys are coming and debating on the stage in front of our audience that is not a natural republican constituency, they realize that the tent has to be bigger. it can't look like a country club in greenwich and that's the opportunity coming up this week. >> aren't they concerned about seeing -- with republicans, they're with them on some fiscal

issues, economic, long-term issues, but what about on the social issues? isn't that typically one of the things that gen z, millennials are turned off on? >> 100%. climate change actually is probably the biggest issue we see in polling, but, of course, there's a whole range of social issues that the republican party seems out of step. but you have people like bill welder coming who are more moderate. even joe walsh and mark sanford, mark sanford talking about balancing the budget and making sure we leave our grand kids with a legacy. even those messages which are conservative messages can be millennial messages, can be gen z messages because they're talking about long-term security which is not what we're getting out of washington right now. >> the forbes under 30 summit begins on sunday. good to see you >> good to be here. what was an administrative review is now a criminal investigation. attorney general william barr's probe into the origins of the

trump/russia investigation has taken a new term. plus, senator lindsey graham lashes out and the impeachment inquiry and condemns the resolution with a new resolution of his own. we'll be right back. own we'll be right back. there's the amped-up, over-tuned, feeding-frenzy-of sheet-metal-kind. and then there's performance that just leaves you feeling better as a result. that's the kind lincoln's about. ♪ it's how we bring real hope to our cancer patients-

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steve ratner. richard haas. republican strategist and msnbc political analyst susan dale persio. president of the national action network reverend al sharpton. also with us senior advisor at move on.org and nbc contributor pierre. rick tyler. joe and mika are off today as they attend the funeral of congressman elijah cummings later this morning in baltimore. rev, i wanted to start with you because you were at the beautiful memorial in the capitol where you saw both sides of the aisle paying tribute to a great man. >> it was a real tribute. it was historic in the sense that elijah cummings was the first african-american elected official to lay at state in the statutory hall, and to see mitch

mcconnell, schumer and pelosi all sitting there together and "morning joe," joe scarborough and mika and i sat with the family. we were invited. you know, congressman cummings officiated over their wedding and he and i worked closely together and so the family had us there, and paul ryan sitting with us. it showed the best in the country when people can disagree but come together to honor a statesman who really served this country, never giving up his principles but learning how to relate to others. i think it was a testimony, a day after we saw 30 republicans storm the hearings, it was a testimony of, wait a minute, let's be more like elijah where we can be civil and debate rather than get into such disparaging kind of spiteful behavior. and in this era of trump i thought it was a day elijah would have wanted. unfortunately, we were there to mourn his passing. >> and his funeral, as i said, will be later this morning down in baltimore. we will go live there a little later in the show. we want to begin with nbc news

confirming that an investigation into the origins of the russia probe, closely over seen by attorney general william barr, has now changed from an administrative review to a criminal investigation. the news was first reported by "the new york times". the review is being conducted by connecticut u.s. attorney john durham. according to "the times" this move gives durham the power to subpoena and to convene a grand jury and file criminal charges. as "the times" notes the opening of a criminal investigation is likely to raise alarms president trump is again using the justice department to go after his perceived enemies. at this point it is not clear what potential crime durham is investigating and a doj spokesperson declined to comment. federal investigators need only a reasonable investigation a crime has been committed to open an investigation, a much lower standard than the probable cause to obtain a search warrant. however, there must be an objective factual basis for

initiating an investigation. a mere hunch is insufficient according to doj guidelines. after attorney general barr said he had conversations that led him to believe the fbi had acted improperly. it is not clear when the change to a criminal investigation took place. house intel committee chair adam schiff and how judiciary chair jerry nadler responded with a joint statement reading in part, these reports, if true, raise profound new concerns that the department of justice under attorney general william barr has lost its independence and become a vehicle for president trump's political revenge. let's bring in nbc news correspondent julia ainsley who has been covering this story. julia, explain, if you can, what exactly john durham has seen from the time he initiated or since the time the justice department initiated this administrative review in may to make it change into a criminal investigation, which has, of course, wide-ranging implications for who he can talk to, what he can gather, the

evidence he can see. >> willie, as we've been reporting there are people within the cia and fbi, low-level people whose names have not risen to the top of the investigation who have been lawyering up in anticipation of this becoming a criminal inquiry or possibly because it already was a criminal inquiry, criminal investigation and now we are finding out. what pushed it from being an administrative review to a criminal investigation? we're not clear and "the times" doesn't lay it out in their reporting either. but, willie, what is very ironic about this entire thing is that the same questions we're asking about this investigation are the very questions that the durham investigation set out to answer about what became the mueller investigation. we are talking about political bias. is this being used as a tool from this administration to go after people that the president believes are against him, who are part of the deep state. we are also talking about a predicate. john durham went out to see if the fbi had enough information, if the justice department had enough information to seek fisa warrants on people like carter

page, and now we're asking the same questions, is there enough information for this to go to a criminal investigation. so, again, we are back in this same spot of having to ask a lot of questions about our justice department and investigators and whether or not they are free from bias. now, i will say john durham is someone with a pretty stellar resume here. this is someone who investigated cia torture. he has done investigations into mafia rings. but there are a lot of questions, and people i have spoken to within the fbi say there can be a chilling effect and they're worried that the next time they're asked to investigate any kind of campaign, especially someone who may go on to hold federal office, that there will be a reluctance to be involved in those investigations because if that person wins you could be called before a grand jury. and on the grand jury piece, on the idea that you can now subpoena, i asked a doj official about that who said that john durham really always had the power to compel testimony simply because he is u.s. attorney, but

it doesn't seem that he has up until this point. it was more voluntary. but because it is a criminal investigation they can now subpoena testimony, subpoena witnesses and impanel the grand jury, which will put this into a completely different category and allow them to compel more information, dig deeper than they could, say, when you just put it in the camp of the inspector general at the justice department who is also doing a review into the same questions. >> it is pretty extraordinary, that the justice department has moved it as a top priority now. of course, attorney general barr himself, not just john durham, has been traveling the world, looking into this, to places like the uk, australia and notably italy because they think there's some link there to a conspiracy between the italian government and someone on the trump campaign who was tricked into giving information. you had the prime minister of italy, julia, coming out at a press conference on wednesday to publicly declare that that was not the case, that the italian government had no role in this. but, again, extraordinary that the attorney general of the united states of america is flying to italy to look into

this question. >> it is true. it shows the priority that the justice department is putting on this investigation. rather than handing all of this off to john durham, it is clear that the attorney general sees this as a top priority, and not only have they been cleared by people like the italian prime minister saying there's really nothing here to see, we saw the white house last week in that rather remarkable press conference from chief of staff mick mulvaney use the justice department investigation, use what john durham is doing as some kind of justification for the president's phone call in ukraine, that this was all to get to the bottom of what launched the investigation, get to the bottom of the 2016 election, and because of that, that somehow justified the president getting involved and having that conversation with the president of ukraine that ultimately led to him asking to dig up dirt on his political opponent, joe biden. so this investigation cannot be seen in a vacuum. it is something that this administration is using to

justify all sorts of priorities and then, of course, what is at the heart of now an impeachment inquiry. >> rick tyler, this is another case where the justice department in this case but also the republicans in the house and the senate this week have answered president trump's call to go chase down theories that he has. remember, he said that the fbi agents who opened this investigation into the 2016 campaign interference were, quote, treason us. he said that earlier this year. william barr is working here on behalf of president trump. there's no other way to put it. >> so, willie, there's only one reason attorney general barr, who is supposed to be managing the justice department, which is a fairly large job, and one with great responsibility, where he is traveling around the world as you point out to personally investigate a case tells you that the priority -- it doesn't seem to be william barr's priority, although it may be. this is the president's priority. he is obsessed with the 2016

election results for whatever reason because it speaks to his legitimacy, and he wants to just blow up all of the facts that we now know that happened in the 2016 election results, which was there was russian interference. not ukrainian interference, although that is also a russian story. there was russian interference in the campaign. it was systematic. the campaign -- the trump campaign unwittingly coordinated with the russians. you have have paul manafort, who was the campaign chairman who is now in jail for his connections with pro russian ukrainian politicians, it just goes on and o but there's no reason bill barr would ever be involved in any particular case unless it was the president's obsession. that's what is going on here. remember, bill barr was the one that came out after the mueller investigation to systematically

undermine it. he went out in advance of the mueller investigation to put the justice department or his -- and i would say the president's particular spin on that investigation. he gave it to the white house before anybody else had a chance to look at it, and it sat there for days of spinning by the white house and justice department to put a particular framing of woo the mueller report was. and so that is now happening again. >> still ahead on "morning joe," senator lindsey graham was slamming the president over syria, but yesterday he offered a big boost in the impeachment fight. we will dig through that next on "morning joe". ♪ . alexa, ask buick to start my suv. you can do that? you can do that? you can do that? yeah, with a buick. what? at the heart of every buick suv... is you. or current eligible non-gm owners

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someone new joins your network... only with xfinity xfi. download the xfi app today. annoepidemic fueled by juul use with their kid-friendly flavors. san francisco voters stopped the sale of flavored e-cigarettes. but then juul, backed by big tobacco, wrote prop c to weaken e-cigarette protections. the san francisco chronicle reports prop c is an audacious overreach, threatening to overturn the ban on flavored products approved by voters. prop c means more kids vaping. that's a dangerous idea. vote no on juul. no on big tobacco. no on prop c. ♪ president trump has spent the week urging republicans to, quote, get tough and fight for him. yesterday he took to twitter to praise house republicans for being, quote, tough, smart and understanding after a group of

republican congressmen stormed the secure room at the capitol where an impeachment inquiry deposition was taking place. hours after that tweet from the president, senator lindsey gram introduced a five-page measured, co-sponsored by majority leader mitch mcconnell, accuses democrats of violating due process for interviewing key witnesses behind closed doors. according to a summary released by graham's office, it calls on the house to hold a floor vote to formally initiate the impeachment inquiry as well as provide trump with due process, to include the ability to confront his accusers and requests that members have complete authority and ability to issue subpoenas. here is what he had to say about the measure yesterday. >> give president trump these rights that every president --

nixon, clinton -- have had and take a vote to allow the house to be on record authorizing this. this is a rogue action by a single committee of the house that has never fun ooimpeachmen inquiries before and i think it is dangerous to the president. >> if someone tried to enter few with the house impeachment process in the '90s of president trump, how would you have reacted. >> think if we were doing this you would be beating the [ bleep ] out of us. >> the resolution is backed by 46 republican senators, seven yet to sign on including susan collins, lisa murkowski and mitt romney. this is a piece of what republicans have been doing. on wednesday they had them with their domino's pizza storming into the secure room. then yesterday you have lindsey graham who understands better

why you hold these in private. >> and he is head of the judiciary committee. it is important to keep in mind as he is out there trying to make friends with the president again, because senator graham was outspoken on the president as actions when it came to syria. now he's trying to figure out a way to kind of mend that fence and look good in the president's eyes once again because the deadline to run a primary against senator graham has not yet passed. i ink that's probably his deadline. what the republicans are trying to do, especially in the house, are just disrupt and they're trying to delay things. it is not working. we ended up when they delayed the testimony of someone, they created five hours where all we talked about was amendmebassado taylor. it is the wrong kind of messaging. they looked like they're trying to disrupt and not let the process go forward. right now it looks like the republicans are trying to hide a lot. >> rev, all have something in

common. none are talking about the facts, the evidence or bill taylor's testimony. they don't want to talk about that for obvious reasons because it is damning to the president. >> usually when people distract it is because they can't deal with the truth. i mean when you are a kid and you do something wrong, you distract your parents because you know if they find out what you did wrong you're going to be punished. that's the behavior we're seeing here. why are we going through all of these different measures if there's nothing to hide, if there's no reason to be afraid of the facts coming out? so clearly they're trying to hide something. the storm with pizza in your hand a hearing, i mean if that does not make the american people say, wait a minute, what are we hiding here, what else would be more -- these are not protesters. these are guys who spent their life arguing against guys like me protesting. now you have a pizza protest in the middle of a testimony? i mean it is almost comical if it wasn't really tearing at the fabric of this country. >> plus, a third of the people there, the house members, were allowed to be inside the

hearing. >> correct, including jim jordan, ranking member of oversight. >> and ask questions. you can't have it both ways. coming up, secretary of state mike pompeo grilled on ukraine and syria. we will show you that pointed line of questioning next on "morning joe." ♪ through the at&t network, edge-to-edge intelligence gives you the power to see every corner of your growing business. from managing inventory... to detecting and preventing threats... to scaling up your production. giving you a nice big edge over your competition. that's the power of edge-to-edge intelligence.

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♪ secretary of state mike pompeo was in his home state of kansas again yesterday, sat down for an interview with mcclatchy's "wichita eagle" and "the kansas city star" in which he mostly deflected questions on ukraine and syria. >> bill taylor told congress this week he sent you a cable on august 29th expressing his misgivings in the delay of military aid to ukraine. what did you do with that cable? >> i'm not going to talk about the ukraine this morning. >> reporter: did you relate his concerns to the president? >> i came here to talk about workforce development, to talk about the great things going on in kansas. >> reporter: what good is the word of the u.s. in light of the president's treatment of the kurds? has that undercut u.s.

credibility? >> the whole predicate of your question is insane. the word of the united states, i will give you a good example. the word of the united states is much more respected than it was two-and-a-half years ago. >> richard, it might be time for the state department to stop putting the secretary out for local interviews where he is crushed by local reporters. it happened in nashville last week as well. what do you make of the questions he was asked and unwillingness to answer them? >> he is in an impossible situation which he put himself in. he wants to give unconditional support for the president. if he does that, he clearly fails in one of his principle tasks which is to defend his own people. he is taking tremendous heat for it and rightfully so. this is the opposite of tammy wynette, he is not standing by his men or women. there is that. to ark that u.s. reliability and credibility is stronger than two-and-a-half years ago, that's a talking point that doesn't pass the laugh test. obviously -- obviously not. so if that's what he -- that's

where he is, but he -- it is mixed metaphors. he is beginning to take on a lot of water as secretary of state, and so he has a problem. when he goes around the country, he gets attacked and when he goes around the world. so other than washington right now, i'm not sure there's any safe spots for the secretary of state. >> let me ask you a question as a guy who has been in these rooms. do you think he believes what he is saying when he says our reputation is fine, it is better than it has ever been? he's a smart guy. he understands the world. do you think he believes what he is saying? >> i know mike pompeo, and i think -- i think he knows better. this is a guy who graduated first in his class at west point. he was the head of the cia. he is now secretary of state. he's not new to these issues. he is a professional. my own sense is he knows better but if you're going to work with this president, there can't be one bit of daylight between you and the president. if you are seen in any way less than 101% loyal, you are then in rex tillerson territory or jim

mattis certifica mattis territory or some territory where you are on the banana peel. what you are seeing is the calculated decision that he will be there 100% or 100% plus. the problem is, again, you -- you know, it is not just the credibility of the country that gets weakened. your own credibility gets weakened and that's where he is right now. coming up, we will go live to baltimore ahead of the funeral services for congressman elijah cummings. "morning joe" is back in a moment. orning joe" is back in a moment can a banana peel fuel your flight.

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elijah was truly a master of the house. he respected its history and in it he helped shape america's future. >> elijah had a passion for justice, justice for those who are under served, justice for those who are undercut, and justice for those who are under estimated. >> for me, i was privileged

enough to be able to call him a dear friend. some have classified it as an unexpected friendship, but for those of us that know elijah it is not unexpected or surprising. he's defined by the character of his heart, the honesty of his dialogue and the man that -- the man that we will miss. >> that's congressman mark meadows there yesterday. hundreds of mourners gathered for a memorial service to honor congressman elijah cummings, the first african-american lawmaker to lie in state at the u.s. capital. current and former staff members of the late congressman have come together to write an op-ed in this morning's "usa today" entitled "how we will remember our boss." chairman elijah cummings, moral clarity in all he did. they write in spart, he wpart,

inspiring both in public and even more so in private. he brought moral clarity to everything he did, and his purpose was pure, to help those among us who needed it most. his example motivated us to become our best selves in the service of others. he was genuine. he interviewed every staff member he hired so he could look into their eyes. each of us has a personal memory of sitting down with him for the first time and it was like nothing we experienced before. he would ask why we were interested in public service, how we thought we could contribute and what motivated us. he would lean in and ask in his low baritone voice, but what feeds your soul? more than a few of us left the interviews with tears in our eyes, perhaps feeling we had learned more about ourselves than about him sometimes. after a big event he would take us aside for a quiet moment and say, i just wanted to thank you for everything you do and for being a part of my destiny. today we thank him for being a part of ours and we commit to carrying forward his legacy in the limited time allotted to

each of us, to give voice to the voiceless, to defend our democracy, and to always reach for higher ground. joining us now from baltimore where the funeral for congressman cummings is taking place in just a cup of of hours, nbc news white house correspondent jeff bennett. good morning. what do we expect to see today in the cathedral? >> reporter: hey, willie. good morning to you. i will tell you this, listening to you read that op-ed written by elijah cummings current and former staffers, you get the sense of the kindness, the conviction, the sense of purpose he brought to his work. people that know him say that. those of us in the press who had the privilege of interacting with him, it certainly came through. you heard nancy pelosi refer to him as master of the house given his keen political abilities. she also referred to him as a mentor of the house, given his commitment to train up freshmen lawmakers. yesterday, today, what we are seeing is a public celebration of a man revered for his deep

and abiding passion for public service, a man regarded for his strong moral leadership. he says that was instilled in him by his parents, both of whom were preachers. really, so much he have elijah cummings' life tells the story of the country. he was born in 1951, into jim crow. parents were south carolina sharecroppers. they moved here to baltimore, maryland, to give him and his six other siblings a better life. in school he was marked as needing special education, but a teacher he had saw in him some promise, some natural inquisitiveness and she put him on a different track. when he got to congress he ascended the heights of political power, all the while never leaving this bought more community. he was one of the last real giants on capitol hill, and that's why he is being so honored today by the hundreds if not thousands of people in line behind me as they make their way in nor the funeral service. he will be eulogized by former

presidents. from a sharecropper's son to one of the giants of capitol hill, that story is emblematic of the kinds of opportunities provided to him that he sought to provide to other people. willie. >> nbc's geoff bennett with a great snapshot of elijah cummings life. we will hear more inside the cathedral, as you said. presidents owe became au a president obama and clinton will speak. rev, a lot of people have watched him in the way he handled himself in congress, the way he mediated in disputes recently between republicans and democrats, but he was the son of sharecroppers. he did at 11 years old help to integrate a swimming pool in south boston. he has lived this american story. >> no, i think that when you look at where he started -- you measure one's life from where they start to where they go. when you look at him lying there in state yesterday as we sat in the statutory hall there in the

capital and think about where he came from, very few in that hall had traveled that distance and did it with no bitterness, no rancor, and with no expediency. because he never gave up the core principles he learned from his preacher father and preacher mother, and he maintained that integrity, yet he rose all the way in a trajectory that you can only be proud of. i can say, listening to the op-ed piece that his staffers wrote, that was who he was. i worked with him on civil rights causes for two or three decades, and he would always raise the moral question, even in the back strategy rooms, he would raise what is right, how is this going to end. he was that kind of person, and he earned every bit of the kind of respect and regard he is getting or more. >> we had congressman clyburn on the show yesterday. he said that both he and congressman cummings aspired to live a sermon with their lives, and i think we can fairly say they've both done that. we turn now to the 2020

presidential race. a new poll out of iowa has senator elizabeth warren in first place at 28%. she is up four points. look at second place, mayor pete buttigieg, is at 20%, a seven-point jump since last month. senator bernie sanders stands at 18%. former vice president joe biden falling four points in this poll to 12%, sliding from second place to fourth. joining us now editor-in-chief of "the economist," zannybeddow is, looking at elizabeth warren's plan to remake capitalism. good to see you. i think john will want to jump in on this conversation. but what do you layout for elizabeth warren and the vision she has for the country, because now as one of the front-runners she is getting scrutiny about how she is going to pay for the plans she is proposing. >> that's exactly right. now she is one of the democratic front-runners, she has a breathtakingly ambitious set of

plans to remake american capitalism. it would be the biggest remaking since fdr, since the 1930s. we felt it was important to have a long, hard look at this set of plans. we have written a big three-page piece, analyzing what she is planning to do. i think the sort of bottom line of it is that her scope, her ambition is breathtaking. many of the things she is trying to address are real problems in the u.s. economy, the scale of inequality, the increasingly concentrated nature of the u.s. economy. on balance when you look at it i think that many of her specific proposals -- some make a lot of sense, but many of them went taken together it would give a shock to the u.s. economy that on balance would not be good for the u.s. economy. more than 50% -- about 50% of the stock market and private equity companies would be affected by reregulation, by breakup, by one of her many ambitious proposals. i think it is not just that they're individual policies one could disagree with, and there are many, the broader philosophy

underpinning it has two elements. one is that she has an enormous faith in government and government regulation, and as we all know government regulation has its down sides. we may be in a situation where we need different kind of regulation of some industries, but she is driven by a faith in government. the converse of that is that i think she is driven by a punitive dislike of much of business. that is actually some of the under pinning of american prosperity. american capitalism is strong because of its business. thirdly and finally, if you look at international policies she is frankly not different from donald trump. she basically has a protectionist view of what international trade should look like. it will be harder to have trade deals. she wants to actively manage the dollar. if you take it all together, i think it is a serious set of proposals and in a time when you have policy making by tweet, i respect she has really laid it out. it deserves a serious look, and obviously candidates at this stage before the primaries, they

may move. so would can see these policies evolving, but as they stand right now there's quite a lot to be worried about. >> the question of how do you pay for that she answers with a 2% wealth tax on people who have 50 million dollars or more of wealth and 3% if you have a billion dollars of wealth. many communists pointed out you could confiscate all of the wealth of the people in that group and it wouldn't cover the cost of all of the plans she is putting forward. >> there's a question about how she pays for some of the policies, but it is not just how she pays for it but the unintended consequences. these things sound attractive, you are shifting power back to workers, that's a great idea but the way she is going to do it will have unintended consequences. the wealth tax, a popular idea on the left, it is worth looking at history. many european countries uses to have a wealth tax, and few now

do. it is hard to implement. we need a rethink of the u.s. tax system, and steve and i may disagree but i'm not sure a wealth tax is the way to go. >> no, we're not going to have a rethink on the taxes. clearly the rich have to pay more but the wealth tax is not how to go about it. when you said it was not good for the american company, i don't know if it was british under statement, think it would be disastrous. >> why do you say that? >> the government policies which she has paid out, they're good, bad, a wealth tax may not destroy the economy. it is not the end of the world. even medicare for all is probably not the end of the world, but the fundamental view of what capitalism -- she says she is a capitalist but she is not. she is really a democratic socialist in some ways and she wants to fundamentally change the role of an american company, how an american company is

governed and in ways that would be disastrous for the american economy. >> i think she is not a traditional socialist. she doesn't believe in the government owning the means of production, but she is very much of the view that you need a large active regulatory government. she seems to have a strong believe that a regulatory government would only do good, and she underestimates i think the knock-on negative consequences of over weaning regulation and the shock it would imply. health care, the financial sector, a huge, huge change which would have very, very large consequences and not all of them good. in fact many of them not good. >> i'm not going to debate socialism either, but i think you could make an argument her policies are more extreme than bernie sanders in terms of the economy and the way we do business here. >> i think both would be pretty extreme actually. i think one of the interesting debates in the democratic party is going to be -- it is interesting that mayor pete is rising in the poll, is the

question of how radical a shift they want to get behind. it is interesting coming from the uk where the leader of our own labor party is even more radical and he is a genuine markist, jeremy corbyn. on both sides of the atlantic you have a dramatic push to the left in the face of very serious problems right now. i think you would agree there are serious problems in u.s. capitalism. the question is has she got the right recipe, and i think overall the answer is no. >> agree. >> i think the question of the politics of it because i think we can argue regulation, deregulation, and the average voter could probably care little about seeing business regulated more because business is not something that they worry about because they've been treated fairly. but how it is paid for, how will this affect middle class and lower class people's taxes, i think that is the issue she had to deal with in the last debate that she didn't really get to an answer. does it raise taxes?

and in your study in "the economist's" look at the proposal, how will it affect the taxes of middle class americans if at all? >> one of the big areas, which is her proposal for medicare for all, she hasn't really come clean on that yet. so the answer is we don't know, and the -- you know, those aspects haven't yet been costed out and paid for. steve is absolutely right that there's, you know, a limit to how much you can raise from the very e very wealthy. so if you are going to have this dramatic remaking and a much, much bigger government you have to fund it from somewhere. >> i think that's the issue. i think that just saying that hurting business or regulate business, i don't think most voters care. i think voters want to know, are my taxes going to be affected. what is going to happen? >> it is also important. she has a plan for that, for everything, but when you look at it, it is cumulative. you have to look at this is my overall plan and this is really how it is going to affect you, not just piece by piece.

>> i think that's absolutely right and i'm sure you're absolutely right on the politics. people don't like big business and it is popular to vote for someone that wants to bash big business. the point we are trying to make having looked at it clearly are that the consequences are going to hurt the very workers she is trying to help. there is a belief that this -- if you kind of in all of the changes elizabeth warren wanted, i think ordinary workers would be worse off, not better off. you're right, how does she pay for it, but it is also cutting through the initial political appeal because, of course, big business is not popular. finance is not popular. there are things that need to change. but on balance, the cumulative impact of what she is proposing is just as likely to hurt the very people she is trying to help. >> stay with us. we turn to business before the bell with cnbc's brian sullivan. good morning. you have an update on brexit zeny may be interested to hear.

>> reporter: i have been itching to jump into your conversation. it has been great, but i will start with brexit because if you want to feel better about the american government, and i apologize to your guest, just look at the uk because they were supposed to have the hard brexit on halloween. they're not going to get their act together again and they asked for a delay. now the european union doesn't want to decide on a date for the delay because they feel it would impact british elections. in other words boris johnson wants to have another general election probably in december because they can't get it together. so if you want to feel better about the united states's political situation and our in-fighting, i would say look at brexit. by the way, if you are confused, you're not alone. i'm not going to lie. i get up here and i say stuff and i hope it is right. >> that's a great concession, sully. >> because i have no idea. by the way, let me just break rules. >> go for it. >> i want to jump into the previous conversation. >> yeah. >> because i want to say something we don't hear any

politician talk about. i'm not taking a side. when we talk about income and wealth inequality, we have to take into account around the world it has gotten smaller. people around the world are getting wealthier as global manufacturing has been outsourced, so the poor, the very poor are less poor than they were around the world. we have to remember we have these conversations about the united states, that if we want the world to prosper we might have to out source. i'm not saying i agree with it or endorse it, i'm saying that's the reality. global inequality has come down over the last 20 years. >> i figured you would want to jump in on that. to be clear to our viewers, you did know what you were talking about then, right? >> i hope. >> cnbc's brian sullivan. >> i'm sure he has a chart for it. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. i will start with you, grassroots supporters of

elizabeth warren and bernie saying here are elites on television trying to protect big corporation us because they don't want to think about medicare for all or the green new deal, what do you stay to that? >> i think it is absolutely right and the politics of that is very popular. that's why she is doing so well. to be clear, i applaud the ambition. i applaud the kind of desire to really think hard about the fundamentals of the u.s. economy. but i just think that in many areas she's gone somewhat the wrong way and overall it is sort of -- it is belief in the power of government and this sort of punitive attitude to business. the two together are a very dangerous combination. yes, you're right. there are big changes that need to happen here. let's take the u.s. health care system. you know, someone from the united kingdom where we have the national health service, you look at the u.s. and you see huge problems in the u.s. health care system. but is a shift to a, you know, fully medicare for all with no private option, the right possibility for a country that

is -- what is it, 100 and how many people? >> 160 million people. >> 160 million people get their health insurance through their employer. i don't think it is going to fly politically. it is also a tremendous change for a huge part of the huge par economy. so i'm less for reckless radicalism. >> coming up next on "morning joe." the "new york times" says they are shaking things up on broadw broadway. the new play called "slave play." ay called "slave play."

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we're reporters from the new york times. no flights. no roads. we're trying to figure out what animals are being affected. galápagos is a really challenging place to work. el niño is starting to go haywire. everywhere is going to get touched by climate change.

"slave play" has been described as centering on the wound inside of america that has gone unhealed for too long. the single most daring thing i have seen in the theater in a long time. a playwrite is joining us this morning. >> your play, your creation, has set broadway on fire and everybody is talking about it. talk about what is "slave play" about. >> this is tricky because i

don't tell people what it is about. it gets people riled up, but i think is better. they can have the world surprise them, and i think it is like a metaphor for when i walk out the door. i want today keep that same sort of feeling of when you walk in the play. >> so it is fair to say it is set in modern times, but it has glumplss of the past put into today's world. >> yes, i think it is more about how we have never, in some ways we have never -- because we have never apologized for the wound of shadow slavery. we have not moved past it in a significant way yet.

it n reality, part of what you say in the play. we don't fit into a certain structure, so all of us are hoping for the best. there is a difference that is what we're trying to say. >> i think that the wound that we carry from that is a wound that we share with everyone necessary this country in a significant way. because i think is something that we all this to hold this history. . >> does the play, or do you personally, you just mentioned the wound, the wound is accompanied by an inner fear that white people don't feel? >> you get pulled over for speeding, if i get pulled over for speeding, it's can i bag the ticket with the cop, can i tell him i know someone. but you get pulled over and you

don't want to -- >> yeah, the play is excavating in a lot of ways. that innate fear, had a big part of the understanding. but i think something that is most eye opening for people is that it gives audiences of color their own relationship to articulate to their whiteness and to awakeness to a fear they probablily is that this latent virus of whiteness. this thing where, there has been a history of violence committed by white people that a lot of good white people don't know what to do with. what they may have or may not have voted for a person that -- all of these things, and it is like not a may or may not.

they did and there is no gets around that and you have to live with that in your genetic landscape. so they would recognize that i have a feeling of being oppre oppress oppressed, and having a history as an oppress eor forces you to look at the world a certain way and having a realistic and honest confrontation with that is better for us than us saying that was them and this is me, saying this is where we've been and how can we move forward and that is ou they situate their characters and hopefully situate their audiences and spaces that are well and hard, and it necessitates a moving forward with grace, onnesty, and dignity. >> it is a sign that you made

something provocative, and it makes people uncomfortable and there are people that protest it online. what is your reaction to people who don't like what they're seeing. >> this history is fraught, it is hard, it hurts. all i can say is that i'm sorry, help create some frame work of this fraud history that month. >> jeremy just turned 30 years old. there is a big future here. we marked those off. >> i'll tell him who rhianna is.

>> "slave play." on broadway, congratulations on the success, that does it for us, it is friday, october 25th and sheer what is happening this morning. starting one hour from now, the funeral of maryland congressman elijah cummings. speaker pelosi will be among those speaking. and the president was withholding military aid to get political favors. but the trump administration is working hard to find something else to talk about instead of addressing these allegations, but